API

I started a little code project last night to interface with the Real Debrid API.

For those who don’t know, Real Debrid is a file caching service and also a way to get access to premium file hosting services like Mega or DepositFiles via a single monthly payment. I started using it because it interfaces well with Kodi which I used on my Nvidia Shield Pro to stream “video content” on my TV.

I have used Kodi on and off over the years and the free hosts are not that good any longer. The Kodi addon I use scrapes torrent sites for filenames, then checks if Real Debrid has a cached copy of the file. If it does, I stream or downloading it direct from Real Debrid over HTTPS, avoiding the wait for a torrent to download.

As much as I like Kodi, I wondered if there was a way I could create a self-hosted app that allowed the user to search for a filename, the app would scrape the torrent sites and check if the files were cached on Real Debrid. Essentially what Kodi already does, but via a web interface. If the files were available, they can be streamed in the browser. This would mean that what ever device was used, it would have access through my Real Debrid account.

The idea being that it would allow me to cancel Amazon Prime, Netflix and Disney+ and let my family have access to watch what they wanted. Kodi does offer a better interface and lookups to IMDB, TMDB or Trakt, but a simple search and stream interface would be cool.

There is already the Kodi torrent scraping code on GitHub, so I might fork one of those to start with. The only issue is that they are usually written in Python, so I would need to learn that, unless there is a way to interface it with PHP somehow.

No doubt I won’t do anything beyond getting a proof of concept to work, but it could be an interesting project. But would I be able to persuade my family to use that rather than Netflix? Probably not, unless I could improve the UI too.